


Often

by moranth



Series: Alena Shepard [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Adult Content, Comfort, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-08
Updated: 2010-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:26:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moranth/pseuds/moranth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory is a fickle thing. Memories don't always surface when you'd want them to, and it can lead to misunderstanding. Thane has an episode of solipsism at a most inconvenient time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Often

"Do you think of her often?"

Thane never could understand why women, anywhere, any species would ask a question they didn't want to know the answer to. This question seemed to come out of nowhere as they lay beside each other, waiting for sleep to claim them.

He wasn't sure how to answer. The truth was that at almost any given time, among the myriad of thoughts passing through his mind, Irikah was there.

"Yes," he said quietly. It was the simple truth that he hoped she would leave at that. He didn't want to taint her memory with a lie.

"How often?"

Alena was hovering above him, her hair a brightly colored halo around her head.

In that moment, she reminded him of Irikah and her endless questions that she didn't truly want to know the answer to.

"_Where are you going now?"_

_She watches him from the bed, her expression a mix of pain and anger._

_They do this every time. It never gets any easier._

_"I have a job I have to do, Irikah…" She knows this, he's told her before and he'd rather not go through it again._

_He dresses slowly, in no hurry to leave. He hates that he upsets her. He doesn't want to go, but he knows no other way of life, no other skills to make ends meet, to keep them fed._

_"What should I tell Kolyat when he wakes up and asks for you?"_

_He shoulders his bag as he turns to go. She's learned well what makes him hesitate, but he has to do this._

_"Tell him that I'll be home as soon as I can."_

_But it won't be soon enough._

_She calls after him down the hallway, her voice sobbing. "Thane…"_

_He doesn't look back, though he wished he had. The next time he'd see her, she would be beaten and broken, her soul no longer apart of this world.__  
_"Thane…? Thane."

"Yes, Irikah?"

He opens his eyes and he's no longer on Kahje, but back on the Normandy, the room lit by the soft glow of the aquarium. Irikah is no longer there tugging at his heart, to get him to stay. There is only Alena, a troubled look on her face. He's slipped into the past while she was right beside him: He's offended her, hurt her unintentionally.

Flustered he rises to gather his things, to spare himself further embarrassment. He can feel his throat tightening as her memory hasn't faded. He can still see her face streaked with tears, feel her cool fingers as she begs him not to leave her again.

"Thane," she calls to him. No, Alena calls him, presses herself against with a body too warm and too soft to be Irikah's.

"It's ok to stay." She murmurs against his neck, her arms wrapped around him.

_He's in life support, pouring out everything he hasn't said in these last ten years to this human woman who doesn't flinch or look away even though she knows exactly what he is._

_They're fighting side by side for the sake of millions of lives. He feels validated, doing something worthy, something he doesn't have to shut his eyes to, won't make him question later on._

_He's on the Citadel with Kolyat who is actually speaking with him without an ounce of hurt or anger in eyes so like his mothers._

_He's in her cabin now, her gaze unflinching as he bared himself before her. She welcomed him readily into her heart, her body._

"You don't have to go…"

No. He didn't have to go.

"If you insist, I will stay."

He lifted her wrist to his lips and kissed it gently, letting its warmth seep into his skin. He couldn't bring himself to turn around and face her, not yet. He could still feel the shame and embarrassment burning within him. These were not emotions he was used to.

Thane was usually in control of his emotions and thus, had a handle on the eidetic memory that was both a burden and a blessing.

He couldn't recall having such a lapse since he was very young. He couldn't remember being so at ease. When he was in the commander's company, he felt a sense of peace that he had yet to achieve through meditation. Alena had become his safe haven, a source of stability that he hadn't realize that he craved, a sense of belonging he wanted to hold onto now that he'd found it.

"I feel I must apologize to you again, siha," he murmured against the skin of her arm. "I didn't properly answer your question." He forced himself to face her now, taking her hand in his. Alena gave them a reassuring squeeze.

"You asked me how often I think of Irikah." He watched her face for any telling signs of disapproval or distress, but she had developed a poker face almost as good as his. He swallowed hard around a lump forming in his throat, "Every day."

"She is always there, somewhere in the back of my mind. Some offhand occurrence will remind me of her. But with my meditations, her memory is brought to the front often… along with thoughts of how I failed her as a husband."

Blessedly, Alena said nothing. She didn't try to placate him or relieve him of responsibility; she just let him push on. "It haunts me: that I couldn't be there for her in life, that I caused her so much anguish, that when she departed from this life, it was my doing. Because of my carelessness, it was my fault. I-"

He shut his eyes, trying to hold back the memory that eventually overtook him.

_"She is here, Sere Krios." The attendant says she leads him through the temple. She is polite, formal, she keeps her distance. She is one of the few privileged enough to know what Sere truly means. She is afraid of him. They come upon a form covered by a veil and his breath catches in his throat._

_"Are you certain?" the words come slowly, his mouth having gone dry._

_"Unfortunately, yes. I will give you a moment." She bows at the waist as she hurries from the room, not looking back at him._

_Thane stares at the sheet from where he stands, reluctant, afraid to approach it, as if seeing her there will cement this as truth, dispelling what little hope he still clings to._

_He takes a breath to steel himself as he goes to stand beside the table. Shaky hands draw back the veil._

_He grips the table to keep his knees from buckling._

_It's her._

_She looks peaceful, almost sleeping. Her face is discolored in places from bruising. He takes one of her hands that had been neatly folded across her chest in his. These hands that raised their son, the same hands that beat against him when he left to do his work, were now limp and cold, the nails were ragged, some of them missing. She'd fought._

_He feels ill from the pit of his stomach. He wants to look away, but knows it would not do justice to her memory if he does._

_The attendant is in the doorway now, he'd heard her foot steps from down the hall._

_"Who found her?" his voice a harsh whisper. There is a pause, he's not sure she's heard him._

_"It was your son, Sere. Kolyat."_

_He's failed them both._

Thane's face was wet. Tears had flowed freely down his cheeks, and something warm was pressed against his eyes. Alena had kissed his eyelids gently, the sensation dragging him out of his private hell. She wiped the tears from his cheeks and let her hands rest on either side of his face as his breathing calmed. He'd done it again.

"Having this memory is not an easy thing. I hope can only hope that you will continue to bear with me. Your patience is…a blessing."

Alena brought him closer and kissed his lips lightly, then again, more forcefully. Despite himself, he could feel a familiar heat building in his belly, his fingers tightening in the short wisp of her hair, dragging him back to the here and now, though in the back of his mind, something felt, off.

He broke away from her, his heart thundering in his chest. He removed her arms from around his neck, grudgingly and regarded Alena, a questioning look on her face.

"I don't want your pity, siha."

"I don't want you to pity me…" he repeated. His heart pounded in his chest, his mind was a torrent of past and present; old hurts rose to the surface.

He knew where he was now; aboard the Normandy, more specifically, in the captain's quarters.  
He was with Alena, not Irikah, though her ghost still lingered about.  
"I know my life has been, _different_ from yours. I've done things you may not agree with, and that my time is short." Alena tried to respond, but he held up a hand to silence her. "I don't want you to show me sympathy because of it. I don't want to just become another pet project for you."

He regretted it as soon as he'd said it, but it was on the table now.  
Alena was a philanthropist by nature. On more occasions than he could count, she'd gone out of her way to aid those who would otherwise be lost. Why should he believe this was any different?

He'd tried to keep himself at a distance when he'd first joined the team. To say detached and focus on the task he'd been given, but she had made it personal. She had reached out to him and despite his battle sleep, he responded.

It had felt good to have someone care; to take interest in his thoughts and his wellbeing. He'd basked in her attention, was delighted when she came to see him and their conversations that went far beyond what he could do for her. She asked no more from him than he had deigned to their cause and he had clearly taken far more than he had given. She never looked at him sadly, didn't treat him like an invalid or a tool; she had shown him nothing less than kindness, but he'd condemned her for it; accused her of using him to satisfy some self-gratifying need.

"Thane," she reached for him again, her touch was warm, unafraid, reassuring, as it always was. Embarrassment washed over him anew. He rubbed his forehead, shielding his eyes from view.  
"I think I should retire to my own quarters. I've shamed myself enough for one evening."

Alena removed his hand, taking it into her own, gently rubbing his palm as he'd done for her before. "You have nothing to be ashamed of." He watched a soft smile light her features.

"I knew what I was getting into from the start and I was ready for it. I had no illusions of who you are or what you've done." She gave his hand a squeeze. "I knew from the moment I realized that I cared for you that I had accepted all of that. I accepted all of you."

He closed his eyes and let her words wash over him. She had accepted him without conditions, without bargains for forgiveness, without fear.

She kissed his brow, before pressing her own forehead to his. It was a show of affection he'd become enamored with, but right now, he wanted more. He reached for her blindly, instinctively knowing where she was. He ran a hand through her hair, feeling it prickle his fingers. He moved to her neck, the skin soft, almost hot against his palm. He pulled her closer, brushing her lips with his.

She met him with parted lips, inviting him closer. He could feel his hold slipping, but he let go willingly.

They made their way back to the bed, leaving a trail of Thane's discarded belongings in their wake, stopping when the bumped into it.

Alena shoved him and he fell backwards ungracefully. She'd caught him off guard, something he never would have allowed before. He sidled up the bed until he was fully on it and Alena quickly followed, straddling his hips.

She leaned over him, grazing his lips with hers as her hands wandered across his neck and chest. He quivered beneath her, his body almost shying away from her touch. It had been years since he had been carnally acquainted with another and while he remembered the _mechanics_ of the basic act, the finer points of intimacy still escaped him. The memories were there, but even as vivid as they were still distant, they didn't prepare him for the closeness, the here and now. To allow himself to be vulnerable, exposed; to relinquish control had taken time, but Alena was patient, and he was willing.

He shut his eyes as she rasped her nails along his thighs, each caress worsening the tightness growing in his belly, his erection bobbed painfully, expectantly.

Alena took his length in her hand and gripped it firmly. He rumbled deep in his throat as she encircled his shaft, carefully, applying a pleasant pressure as she passed each ridge. Alena wrapped her lips around him and his toes curled, as involuntarily as the sigh that escaped him.

He propped himself up on his elbows so he could see her better, and was almost undone by the sight attending to him. His head fell back against his shoulders as the last bits of his composure slipped away. His hips pumped shallowly as he sought friction, to ease the steadily building ache.

"Siha…" he managed, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to touch her. He reached for her, his fingers gently tangling in her hair as she sent another wave of sensation through him, doing things with her tongue that his mind couldn't process. He was at her mercy; reduced to a mass of unintelligible pants and grunts, of primal and urgent need. Just as abruptly as she started, she stopped her ministrations, earning her a groan of dissatisfaction, that, had he been in his right mind, he might have stifled.

Alena mounted him again, her hot sex rubbed against him, arduously. He shifted uncomfortably beneath her, but she showed no signs of helping to alleviate his condition. He wanted to reciprocate. His hands skimmed up her form, one cupped her breasts, while the other found her clit. Alena whimpered as he teased each nipple to taut attention. She took the hint and reached beneath her, grabbing his member before she lowered herself on it with agonizing slowness.

She started to move, balanced precariously with a hand against his belly and one on his thigh. He was entranced; her breasts swayed with each shuddering movement, rivulets of sweat ran down her skin flushed with excitement and her eyes-

Her eyes were locked on him. She didn't look away or close them as pleasure seemed to ripple through her. She watched him earnestly, her gaze boring into the heart of him. It was almost too much to bear.

He sat up slowly, drawing his legs up to support her, as Alena wrapped hers around his waist. They shared the burden, easily falling into a comfortable rhythm, his strokes matching the tempo of her rocking hips.

While he was no stranger to sex, this felt more intense. He could feel her heart thundering in her against his, her breath hot on his neck, her need fueling his, the room silent save for the quiet hum of the fish tank and their panting, as if nothing existed outside of this room, of this moment.

Thane could feel the tension building; his own release swiftly approaching as Alena quickened her pace. He held her, his fingers enmeshed in her hair.

Alena went first, a soft, mewling cry as she came, her whole body embracing him, drawing him in. He buried his face in her neck as his own orgasm shuddered through him. His arms wrapped around her tightly as they waited for the tremors to subside.

They parted tentatively and spread out on the bed, sleep already moving into claim them. Thane gathered Alena into his arms, and she made herself comfortable against his chest.  
He was the most relaxed he could recall being and he hadn't relapsed into ancient memory. His mind was thankfully blank.

But this would be one he looked back on fondly and most definitely often.


End file.
